30 Sep 2015

As a society, I have figured that we are all very awkward and easily embarrassed people. But when you are faced with having to order your food at a restaurant, sit next to a man on the Tube who insists on opening his legs to their full openness or try to get the message across to the woman in the queue that you don't really care about her cash-or-card dilemma, it's no wonder we constantly feel on edge!

I mean our generation even seems to find it difficult speaking to another human being. That awkward moment when you are trying to think of something to say when there's nothing left to say, so you just make a pathetic excuse like "Oh I need the loo" and walk in the opposite direction to the toilets as fast as your little legs will carry you!

Am I right?!?!?

Siri is just so much easier to get on with sometimes.

However you people have not known true awkwardness until you have cringed so violently that you have popped an organ and had to move countries and change your name due to the sheer shame of the situation.

The struggles are real!

So here are some of my seriously awkward moments that will leave anybody's face redder than a baboon's bum. And I have some seriously cool gifs (I genuinely didn't know they were called that until about 5 minutes ago!) to go with them because they make everything so much funnier.

1. When you think somebody is waving at you so you wave back very enthusiastically, only to turn around and realise they were waving at the person behind you. Normally resulting in the need for the floor to open up and swallow you whole.

2. Walking into a shop and realising you meant to go to the one next door, but you don't want to look suspicious to the scary security man like you just shoved a £3 Primark jumper in your bag, so you do a sort of sweep of the store. Then you give very theatrical sigh to indicate that they didn't have you size, before legging it out the shop and going in the one next door. Pheeew!

3. When you meet somebody new and you do that awkward Shall We Hug, Kiss or Handshake Dance that almost always ends in a tangle of limbs and uncomfortable laughter.

4. Holding open a door for somebody you thought was right behind you because my-mummy-brought-me-up-to-be-a-polite-child-and-not-a-raving-lunatic. Then seeing them half way down the corridor, running so not to make the situation even more awkward than it already is. Thank you kind person, if only all people did that so you weren't left hold a door open for 3 hours on end.

5. Walking down the street alone and tripping over an imaginary pile of stones, so you try to play it cool like "I meant to do that!" while secretly rubbing your swollen coxic bone.

7. Find yourself earwigging on another person's conversation and laughing really loudly at a joke they made. Cue everyone turning around and looking at you like you are mental!

6. Holding a pen in your hand during class and not realizing you have been accidentally been drawing all over your face for the past 35 minutes. And what makes it worse is that nobody even thought to tell you!

8. Asking somebody in a clothing store if they have this in different size and realizing they are just wearing a blue jumper and DON'T actually work there...

9. Small talk with strangers. The stuff of absolute nightmares that normally includes a) the weather b) your state of hunger and c) a compliment about a really ugly piece of clothing!

Get me away from this person now!!

9. When somebody's in the way and you're too shy to ask them to move, so you kind of stand over them and cough violently until they notice you and move- more out of fear of catching whatever contagious disease you have than anything.

10. When somebody is telling you a really long story and you kind of tune out half way through so your face resembles something a lot like this:

11. Walking in one direction and realising you need to go the other way so you quickly turn around, hoping nobody saw you...but you know full well that everyone did!

12. When you're home alone and having more fun then you have ever had in your whole entire life and just really hoping that nobody walks through that door.

23 Sep 2015

All too much society likes the stereotype people and say that all popular girls at school will be dumb blondes- just look at Regina George- and all intelligent people will be friendless, with braces and glasses. But it's not true!

The same goes for people who read books. Apparently we have to be nerdy and shy, spend all our time sitting in the corner of a room alone and if we do happen to speak to somebody we use very long literary words and bore them to death with a synopsis of Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.

Wrong! All wrong!

Being a bookworm is cool. It's not something people should be ashamed about admitting. And I just hate the fact that the media portray this image to people. I mean you never see a highly intellectual book reader beating the shit out of the bully do you? More than likely it's the other way around. So no wonder some people, especially young school children, are scared to say they enjoy reading.

However it shouldn't be this way. Books are there to be discussed with your friends, to make you think and laugh and cry together. To simultaneously connect you with the millions and millions of other people in the world who have read that exact same sentence as you.

So just for those children, who hide away in their bedroom at home reading, here's why it is super cool:

1. You can learn about different cultures and countries without even having to jump on a plane
Not everyone can afford or how the time to be jet setting around the globe, visiting remote parts of the planet and Instagraming it all to their hearts content. I am very much one of those people. Instead I have resorted to books.

Once you get looking, there is an astonishing variety of books out there based in hundreds of different countries in the world. There is The Kite Runner set in Afghanistan, The Great Gatsby set in New York, Les Miserable set in Paris and an endless amount more!

2. It connects and unites people

I'm always banging on to my friends and family about books :"Have you got to this bit yet?".... "I can't believe he died"..."No! Are they really turning it into a film?"

There is so much that can be said about them, so no wonder some genius came up with the idea of Book Clubs and Coffee Mornings. Not to mention the fact that books have know expanded onto the internet with a rise in book bloggers, vloggers and social media accounts. There has never been a better time to start meeting other people who like to read just as much as you.

3. Books become conversation starter
Carrying on from above, many people have met their soul mates that they will spend the rest of their life with and their best friends through simply chatting about a book. It kick starts a conversation and immediately removes any awkwardness completely. Try it sometime...

4. It can transported back in time

Without the help of Doctor Who or a time machine I should add, books allow us to experience the past. We can jump into a Charles Dicken's story and learn about Victorian Britain or we can open Anne Frank's Diary and see what was it really like to be a Jew in WW2.

Not only that but think about all the people, hundreds of years ago, who have read those exact same words as you are reading now. In that moment you are connected to them.

5. You know what and when something is going to happen in the movie
So many brilliant books have been brought to life on the cinema screen. So not only do you experience the excitement of seeing what you pictured in your head in real life, but you know exactly what's about to happen before it happens.

I'm sure your friends would be pretty impressed with that one! Like, hold on a mo...are you flippin' psychic or something?

6. It improves intelligence, imagination, communication and spelling
Something our parents and our teachers liked to constantly remind us of, and something we liked to constantly ignore. But the fact remains that this is 100% true. People who read books have been scientifically proven as more intelligent and creative than people who don't read.

So whose gunna be working in McDonalds then, eh?

NOT THIS GAL!

7. Free entertainment Why pay out money to go to SeaWorld or a theme park, when you could pop down to your local library and check out a book for absolutely nothing. Or purchase one from the Top 100 Free Ebooks for zero pounds and zero pence. You cannot go wrong!

8. Lastly, some of the riches, most famous people who ever lived were authors and poets

21 Sep 2015

It seems I'm getting worse and worse at writing these posts on time but FIY I had a very busy weekend and a stack load of Biology work to do. And now I'm sitting here with wet hair from that damn rain, reliving my childhood by watching an old episode of Tracey Beaker and typing away like a mad woman!

Oh the glamour of being a blogger, eh?

1. An Inspector Calls

We had to read this play for one of our GCSE exams and I just adored all the twists and turns as you find out that every member of the seemly normal Birling family had a part to play in the death a young girl named Eva Smith. I was absolutely ecstatic to hear that they had turned it into a BBC drama and that David Thewlis (who played Professor Lupin in HP) was cast as The Inspector!

Such a simple thing I know, but something that we all take for granted. It is only when you can't have a few frickin' minutes to yourself without being interrupted and exposed to noise that you realize how much you miss it. Living in a busy household, somebody is always coming or going and boy do you know about it! Of course I wouldn't change my family for the world but sometimes...just sometimes I wish I had bit of time to myself to just relax.

3. Unchipable nail polish

I'm not even sure if that is a word but we'll go with it! Anway, I painted my nails with this lil' beauty on Tuesday and it was only at the weekend that they start to chip which is, like, unheard of! Not only does it last forever but the colour is to die for. So the moral of the story is that sometimes it is worth paying the extra few pounds for a nail polish if it's a good'un!

And this is a good'un indeed!

4. Family heirlooms

You probably heard about my aunt's passing and as sad as it was, I was very grateful to find that she had left quite a bit of her extensive perfume and jewelry collection to me. As it so happen we both have the same initials so many of jewelry pieces marked with Bs were given to me. I've never really had anything that could be classed as a family heirloom and now I do which is just so incredibly special and heart warming.

5. The Lion King

You cannot beat a Disney classic, so when I got tickets to see The Lion King at the Lycem London Theatre on Saturday I was over the moon! The show was absolutely spectacular from the songs and the live music to the set designs that made you feel like you were really on the Sahara plains and the way that the costumes transformed the people into animals. It was mind blowingly brilliant and now I can't the blinking songs out of my head!!

7. Radio

And lastly don't ever underestimate the beauty of switching on the radio and rocking it out to some tunes in the safety of your bedroom. It beats Itunes any day!

17 Sep 2015

If you aren't careful the weekends can pass in a blink of an eye and all that waiting and wishing for those two days to come around were pretty pointless. Spending most of Saturday asleep and the rest of the day watching Netflix (still in your pjs of course!) sounds as appealing to me and it does to you. But admit it people! We are wasting those precious days sitting around doing absolutely nothing. And no, popping down to Papa Johns to order a pizza doesn't count as something.

So last weekend I took a trip down to Nolfolk in order to prolong the weekend and actually have something of interest to say on Monday in reply to "What did you do at the weekend then?" because "Oh ya know...I got up at lunch time on Sunday, made myself some brunch, fed the cat and went back to bed again to watch five episodes of Pretty Little Liars while stuffing my face with chocolate!" makes you sound a bit like a hormonal hermit crab!

No offence to hormonal hermit crabs or anything.

First off, after getting a wee bit lost because SatNav Sally was being stupid, we stopped off at a country pub called The Bridge Inn . It was shame that the weather wasn't slightly warmer so we could of sat in the brilliant outdoor facilities they have there, right next to a lovely little river. Instead we had to resort to sitting indoors by a window, so we basically had the best of both worlds!

Hannah Montana eat your heart out :)

The food on offer was your typical pub grub, which FIY I adore! It's the type of hearty meal that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy like there is a little bear cub curled up asleep inside you. Ya know the feeling?

After much deliberation (we had the send the waiter away twice when he came to ask us what we wanted!) I went for the Double Bacon and Cheese Burger because duh it's a burger. Plus I'm technically on holiday so calories don't count people!

As we watched all the boats passing, like the sexy beast above. it kind of made us want to do the same. I mean who doesn't like the idea of peacefully floating along down a river to your heart's content? Once you get over the fear of the boat ride turning into the next Titanic, it is a pretty appealing idea.

So thanks to the free WiFi on offer at the pub- why some pubs don't offer it is beyond me- we booked ourselves a little day boat at Herbert Woods which turned out to be just around the corner. What luck!

Once the life jackets (as incredibly attractive as always!) were on and all the safety regulations were spoken about...we were off!

Just us, a few nosy swans and the big open water. Gently bobbing along down the river, soaking up the last of summer heat and thinking "Ahhh this is the life!"

14 Sep 2015

Don't ask me why I decided to go all cowgirl on you there- I'm in a weird mood!

Anyyyyyway, this week has been pretty manic in that it wasn't until Monday that I realized I was meant to be starting 6th form the following day. Cue mad stationary buys (although I completely forgot about a notepad so had nothing to write on!) and me chucking everything but the kitchen sink into my bag. And what a bloody beautiful bag it is!

Despite being at the same school, everything just seems so different. Maybe it's the fact I'm only studying Biology, Psychology and Literature or maybe its because it's a lot more relaxed. I mean on some days I only have two hours worth of lessons compared to the five I am used to. So it's pretty flipping amazing and means I get all my homework done at school, leaving more blogging time in the evening. Woop woop!

So onto the list we all know and love:

1. Pencil skirtsIf you hadn't already guessed from the fact that fashion is almost never ever mentioned here, I'm not a massive clothes lover. At the end of the day they are just something to cover up so we don't end up walking around half naked! But that was before I brought my first pencil skirt...and I've not looked back since. You can pretty much wear them with anything and it pulls you in in all the right places. Sexy, sculpted bum here I come!!

2. Ham and cheese toastiesStuff all you fancy salads and hummus lunches, I'm here to tell you about the good old toastie! Quick, easy and yummy- you can't go wrong. A slight carb overload but who really cares when it makes you feel all nice and squishy inside.

3. Long nail

Me and my ever snapping, tearing nails have a very longstanding fued going on. They just point blank refuse to grow long and luscious, so I end up with horrible stubby nails. But (don't want to jinx myself here!) they are looking pretty goooowd right now if I do say so myself! This stuff is a life saver.4. The Lift Experiment

I've recently started studying psychology at A Level and am really enjoying it. Its so flippin' interesting and NO I HAVEN'T LEARNT TO MIND READ YET!! One experiment we did look was the famous Lift Experiement by Soloman Asch- in which they wanted to test people to see if they would copy the behavior of others around them. It really is mind blowing stuff. You can watch the original study here and an updated, more detailed version here5. Hotel rooms:

On Saturday we traveled to Norfolk- which is surprisingly closer than I first thought- to meet up with my aunt so we decided booked ourselves into a hotel for the night. And who doesn't love a good hotel room eh? Fluffy robes with matching slippers, a mini kettle and fridge, complimentary pillow mints and those cute little packets of biscuits to dip in your tea. Living the high life here people!6. Animals

I will never understand how people don't like animals. My brother and I spent the whole of Sunday being licked to death by my Aunt's dog Kirk, who for a Staffordshire Bull Terrier was extremely friendly. His particular breed has had terrible press in the past and if people think it is Staffies that have problems, they are looking at the wrong end of the lead! It's how their owners bring them up that affects their temperament- no animal is born aggressive. And I just wish more people would understand that.

9 Sep 2015

Just recently I have started studying England Literature at A Level and am loving it! The fact I chose to study English probably doesn't come as a surprise to most people since I almost always have my nose in a book. However, if I said I was a massive poetry reader then I would be lying.

And Bethany does not lie she is too amaze-balls

It isn't that I hate poems or that I don't appreciate how absurdly intelligent poets must be to write some of their work. It's just that sitting down to read a poem doesn't have quite the same appeal as sitting down to read a book. And I think for most people that is probably the same.

However in the past I have been introduced to several poems which have really touched me and made me think about things in a different way. This is one of them and I wanted to share it with you.

Maybe this will be a new series on In The Clouds, maybe not. What do you fancy?

Anyway, this is a rather controversial poem by John Agard in that it is challenging people to think about every day words that they use and whether they are still suitable words to use in the 21st Century. The word in focus is 'half-caste', a term that seems to suggest that people of colour are less human than white people because they come from a family of mixed races. And really it does seem such a strange idea to even think of somebody as 'half' of something because that is simply not possible.

I suppose this poem touched me more than others because 'half-caste' is a word that I have heard thrown around a number of times, just like 'midget' for describing a person with dwarfism, without even a second thought as to what it really means and how hurtful it could be to the person it is directed at.

I know they say that only sticks and stones can break your bones, but we all know that words will and can hurt you just as much. Maybe, even more.

Of course we have moved on a lot from the times of slavery and segregation, where black people were physically and emotionally abused simply for the colour of their skin. Although I am sad we ever had a part to play in that truly disgraceful behavior, society is now becoming a lot more accepting of different cultures and races. And for that I am thankful that maybe one day my children and my children's children can live in harmony with one another and look beyond people's appearances.

At the end of the day we are all human beings. We all have hearts and brains and lungs and kidneys. We all bleed the same colour for god sake! So if inside we are all the same, why should the outside even matter?

All I ask it that we just be a little mindful sometimes and think before we speak, letting the beautiful words of John Agard guide us through our path in life:

7 Sep 2015

I swear as soon as September 1st come around it feels like somebody has turned the thermostat down. I wake up shivering most nights and have to pull half a dozen blankets on top of me just to keep warm. And my feet, well, they have been feeling like blocks of ice recently to the point where the fluffiest of fluffy socks will not warm them.

Scary stuff.

So yeah it's been a strange week, a lazy week but a strange one. And my poor body is just freaking out a bit like wtf just happened? Am I about to die or something? Did we relocate to the Antarctic with me even realizing? So I actually have a pretty good excuse to lay in bed all day, that and that fact that next week I will be having to wake up at 6:30am every day for 6th form. Not looking forward to that at all!

Here's what else went down this week:

-Bank holiday weather: Well what else can be said apart from the fact that it was a complete wash out! I don't know what it is about this country and bank holidays, but the weather is always terrible. It's like mother nature is against us or something because we closed a few of the shops for the day.

-GBBO: It's not everyday you go out to nice country pub for dinner and end up bonding with the waitress over The Great British Bake Off- "Omg! I can't believe he went out - She should have gone - no he was worse!" It was a pretty special moment, especially when you are sat tucking into a Creme Brulee for the first time and discussing whether or not the use of a blow torch is cheating.

-Jack's first day: On Friday my brother started senior school for the first time and it is just the cutest thing ever. I can't quite believe how grown up he seems now- although I keep telling him he's still a little baby which seems to wind him a bit! Therefore I am doing my job :)

-Re reading HP: The thing about Harry Potter is that the story and the characters will never get old. And every time I re read the books (currently half way through Philosopher's Stone) it's like coming face to face with an old friend again.

Still waiting on that letter though...

-Nude tights: Black tights are so, like, last winter ago. Now it's all about nude tights that make you look as though you have been on holiday at the Caribbean all summer and been using some seriously magical moisturizer that got rid of all those pesky shaving spots!

Once you go nude, you never go back.

-Carrot and cheese in a cake? It sounds so utterly revolting (and the mixture does look a little bit like sick!) that you would have thought the person who developed it would now be in prison for committing a cake crime. However, this recipe, makes the most delicious moistest cake you will have ever eaten in your life! It is to die for, believe me.

5 Sep 2015

We are all a bit obsessed with taking the perfect picture. Whether it's for your Instagram feed or your blog, we all do that thing where we take 278304 pictures but delete every single one because they weren't good enough. The lighting wasn't right. The camera angle gave you a double chin. The flash made your skin go all shiny and greasy looking. Like I did actually wash this morning thankyouverymuch!

However, there was actually a time (shocking as it is, dinosaurs were long extinct by this point!) where we didn't have the privilege of being able to flick through the pictures we just took and delete the bad ones off. Where we just had to click the shutter button and hope for the best. Where we had to physically go down to our local shop and get the images developed.

Each and every one of those pictures, no matter how blurry or fuzzy, was loving placed into a photo album to look back at in years to come. A visual memory captured forever in a book.

Now I often find myself snapping pictures because I feel I should. Not because I really want to. Everyone else around me seems to live their life through a lens- should I do the same? Am I missing out by not capturing this moment? Will the world fall apart if I don't include a picture with this blog post?

So we are all very guilty of getting sucked into new technological fads. No doubt about it! Now poor reliable photo albums are getting pushed aside and replaced by computer screens, Iphone camera rolls and memory sticks. Yes, it's convenient and cheaper. But what's the good in these gadgets if it means we all stop appreciating photography? If we download photos and never look at them again?

For me, the excitement of developing photos at the Boots counter never gets old. Being able to hold a physical memory from your childhood in your hands and stroke your lil' chubby cheeks is absolutely priceless. It hands down beats plugging your phone into a laptop and viewing a slideshow of pictures any day!

Just because we are in the 2015 doesn't mean we can't rock out to Queen or The Beatles, so why do have to conform to all the latest tech? Do we really need to get our hands on the new Iphone 50 because it has a way better camera than the Iphone 49?

Probably not.

So now I've made a conscious decision to start turning more towards photo albums and building up a collection of pictures there instead.

For now my laptop has been made redundant and I really hope you will join me.

4 Sep 2015

All around the country at this precise moment parents are busy ironing school uniform, buying up the entire stationary content of WHSmith and wiping away tears as they get all emosh about that fact that little Freddie is growing up! And you know why? Because it's back to school week of course- which means double the amount of traffic on the roads, abandoned amusement parks and the hilarious sight of seeing a mum dragging her screaming child through the school gates on a Monday morning. Never gets old!

When I first started high school way back in 2010, I only knew five people all of whom I didn't particularly like. So basically I was on my own. It was really tough at first being in such an alien environment and for somebody with a rather bad sense of direction (I once forget which room in the house was my bedroom!), I ended up getting lost more times than I care to remember.

But I soon settled down and found my people...well that was until about a year in when I was suddenly moved to a higher set with a bunch of people who I had never even seen before. Everybody thought I was new to the school, even though I had been there since the very beginning, and by that time they had already form their friendship groups so were not bothered about talking to me despite my best efforts. So I was pretty much back where I started twelve months ago- alone and friendless!

Lil' me in year 7!

I remember hating school so much at that point, refusing to go in and if I did I would just come home and cry. I begged to go back to my old classes, but the teachers just would not budge one bit and I ABSOLUTELY DESPISED them- still do - for putting me through that.

However, in the end that experience did make me a lot stronger as a person and I did end up meeting some really lovely people who I am still good friends with now. But that was not something I was expecting from high school.

___

So here for all your lovely people moving, leaving (like moi!) or looking back on senior school here's what I learnt about it from my five long years at the place:

1. It's not like High School Musical or Mean Girls at all. You don't break out into a spontaneous song and dance routine at every given moment nor are groups divided into The Geeks, The Plastics and The Skater Dudes etc!

2. You don't get your head flushed down toilets by BIG mean bullies who are twice the size of you and like to steal your lunch money just for the lols.

3. People don't shove cigarettes, drugs and alcohol down your throat here, there and everywhere.

4. Kids like to make up words and use them in sentence because they think it's cool. This includes but is not limited to fleek, bun, peng and sick. English anyone?

5. Food fights are very unlikely to happen. The problem is nobody, other than film stars, have the gut to start them.

6. Popularity is not everything. You don't have to be popular to have a good group of mates around you.

7. Everyone is basically struggling to keep their head above water, as they fight to fit in and do everything they can to look cool because being cool is so important.

8. Friday nights do not consist of night clubs, drink and loud music. In reality everyone is at home studying and/or recovering from five days at school.

9. Most people are in fact still virgins by the time they leave.

10. It rips you of any sense of personal identity- it is somehow consider a crime to stand out and be unique. So say goodbye to make up, nail vanish, customized uniform and dyed hair.

11. Yet it is still the best time of your life. Being young is frickin' amaz-balls!

12. You get more time off and holidays than you ever have before, so make the most of it. The six week summer holiday unfortunately doesn't exist in Adult Land, as much as we all wish it did.

13. You will meet some absolutely amazing people who will change your life. Trust me!

14. And belly laugh more than you thought was humanely possible.

___

So you see I learnt a lot about high school and busted a few myths while I was at it. Would I like to do it over all over again if I had the chance...? Nope. Being a teenager, surrounded by teenagers, is tough. But in a few years, when I've forgotten all the drama like most people seem to do, I may answer different. If I do, please kindly knock me on the head with a hammer for being such a twit.

2 Sep 2015

It's so easy to sit and feel as though you haven't actually achieved anything despite being on this planet for a considerable amount of time. But the fact is we achieve amazing things everyday without even noticing it: having a shower that doesn't last for three hours because you were "thinking about life", getting out of bed before 9am and making a cake that doesn't have a soggy bottom!

We need to give ourselves more credit people.

However, sometimes it's nice to have a physical copy of our bigger achievements and goals, hence the exclusive grand unveiling of my very first Bucket List! Bearing in mind that I am only sixteen, giving me a good sixty years before I kick the bucket, I've got a lot of time on my hands to get things done...hopefully!

Welcome

Bethany Dale ¦ Teen ¦ UK

Welcome to the world of In The Clouds. Here I invite you to take a look around at my daily rambling about life, cakes, books, films and much more. Make yourself comfortable, get out your box of chocolates and enjoy!